Author, columnist, broadcaster, funny bird.

Massive word-barf.

I have been quiet of late.
Church mouse on a silent retreat quiet.
Contestant on Mastermind being asked a question they don’t know and are quite embarrassed about quiet.
Mute-button quiet.

Alas, this honey-sweet blessing is about to end, as I have finally found my keyboard and my fingers, and connected them.

Allow me to make some WORD NOISE in the form of this blog.
It’s actually less of a blog than a huge word-barf catch-up of the last few months.

So just WHAT has La Fraser and her ever-shrinking skirt been up to, during this blog-o-break of EPIC (to use my son’s favourite word, which seems to have out-awesomed ‘awesome’ itself) proportions?

Well, I’ve been on the telly a lot, doing telly stuff for ITV’s Daybreak, Lorraine and This Morning. Anybody would think I go there so much so I can flirt with Dan Lobb and snaffle chocolate muffins.
The very thought!

and going to caffeine-laden meetings with Very Important Meedja People, which unfortunately I didn’t realise until I got INTO said meetings, wearing clothes better suited to a mud bath at Latitude.
I also stole a banana at one of them. This is probably why they haven’t called me back yet.
Yes, it was definitely that.

and going to a Lesbian Ball (hence the badge pic, above, which I shamelessly put there to grab your attention, you pleasingly filthy lot) courtesy of Tatler magazine.
And no, I’m sorry to say I didn’t. But my GOD I was tempted. Several times. Cor blimey, what a lot of drip-gorgeous X-chromosomes all pulsating like over-excited nipples, in one heaven-scented room. See: http://www.tatler.com/bystander/events/2012/july/tatler-lesbian-ball#/7554/image/1

and doing a screen test for rather groovy TV series (MASSIVE STRESS PANIC HERE. Aaaand breeaathe…

and giving a talk about blogging at the Britmums conference in London (did you go?? If not….come next year. They have free manicures – HELLO – and samples of beer served in teeeeny little glasses but if you keep going back every 0.8 seconds, which is how long it takes to empty your glass, you can get merrily merry eventually and then waft about feeling lurvely, what with the new nails and half-pissed brain and all) ……which led to a rather strange and unpleasant Twitter experience that I’ll share with you some time soon.

Oh, and there are men with bananas stuffed down their pants, but I PROMISE none of these were involved in the banana-stealing incident.

and interviewing the delectable and talented Kate Spicer about her EXCELLENT film Mission to Lars (DO PLEASE watch it if you can. It’s beautiful. You might cry. And you will laugh. And you’ll think, which is perhaps the most important of the three) http://www.missiontolars.com/

and being a Mummy to my three children, one of whom is now so much taller than me it’s becoming impossible to think of her as a child. She is a GIRAFFE-child.

Oh. My. Gee!!

But I still love you.

Amidst all of this thumb-twiddling boredom and serenity I seem to have produced a chewy glut of telly related yada-yada and leg-baring of early-morning late, so here are some links. Get yerself a cuppa, and settle down for a Morning TV binge:

First, there was the debate on Daybreak, about being fat, or not being fat, and whether criticising someone for being fat, or not being fat, in a sort of “Oi, ya fackin’ fat slag/skinny bitch [shout as appropriate, while making oikish hand-gestures]” kind of a way, should be classed as a Hate Crime.

To which, really, one just wants to say ‘Er, like, WTF?’ as one would if one were born after 1998 and one’s thumbs couldn’t think of the letters that go in-between.

Because I’m not EPICally insensitive, I agree that abusing others for the size of their derriere, or devant, or any places in-between, is not OK.

It’s nasty.

And nasty things are generally not OK, unless the person you’re directing them at deserves it. Like, say Hitler, or Justin Bieber’s hairdresser.

We learned this in Kindergarten, at the same time that we learned the importance of grabbing the biggest flapjack on the plate the second it came within arm’s length, otherwise Big Susan took it every time.

Perhaps calling Big Susan ‘Big Susan’ was our first hate crime, only we didn’t know it yet. We just had four-year-old eyes, and could see that she was big. Just as Little Jonny was smaller than Tall Jonny, and Dave ‘Knob’ Dickson was a knob.

People say that children are cruel, but really they’re just honest.

Lying to keep everyone happy comes with growing up, until we go full circle and decide we’re old enough not to give a monkey’s any more what other people think, and start insulting them by speaking our minds again.

Aaaaanway……I can’t, can’t, supercan’t bring myself to agree that calling someone fat should be classed as something as serious as a ‘hate crime’. It’s nasty, yes. But it’s not quite on the same scale as, say stoning someone to death because of their Religion, or putting 300 hate-filled letters through someone’s door every day, just because they fell in love with someone who happens to have the same flavour of genitals.

THAT kind of behaviour, is EPIC badness and should be treated as a true hate crime, with all the punishment that goes with it.

Violence against a person for any reason, whether it’s because they are fat or wear glasses or tap-dance badly in the shower, is already a crime, as it should be.

Calling someone fat, or four-eyed or whatever one would call someone who tap-dances badly in the shower (‘Liz Fraser’, for example) should not.

It’s just mean.

So here’s the TV debate. It was…..an experience. It was also a TV first for me because….I wore HEELS. I teetered to the sofa, I tell you. Teetered and wiggled my bum. All the way.
And then tried to sit like a lady. And failed.

This next part made me laugh particularly hard, when I was informed that I was ‘totally ignorant about issues to do with size.’
Yes. As most recovered anorexic/bulimics are. Indeed. Thank you for pointing that out, kind lady who doesn’t judge people. Hmmm.

Another day, another Daybreak (which for most of this summer has meant another grey, vile morning of pissing rain, sodden shoes and eyeballs being poked out by umbrella spikes, but HEY at least we’re not getting sun damage, right? RIGHT?? Pause for crying….)

This time the discussion was about childcare and whether we should be having ever more and more and more of it.

As ever there is FAR more to say on the subject, but here’s what we crammed in to 3 minutes:

Here’s me running in the Race for Life, Cambridge. If you’ve not run a Race for Life yet then DO sign up for next year. They’re fun, you get to walk/jog/run around a park, and they raise money for cancer research. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?? Do it.

(I’m the scrawny one on the right. The girl on my left beat me. By a long way. And she has MUCH sexier legs. And is 20 years younger. Damn and double damn.)

Oh, and here are some knitted bicycle covers that I spotted in town. Nice, huh?

Finally for now, another Daybreak on the subject of swearing and football, following the John Terry Lipreading case, and the Bizarre ‘Choc-ice’ Debacle that followed on Twitter.

Should swearing be banned both on and OFF the pitch? Is it OK to take your children to a match and then stand there shouting ‘The REFerEE’s a WANKer!” throughout?

Having a conversation where you can’t use any of the key words involved is quite a challenge, especially when your mouth has a tendency to be as filthy as cow-shit laden field in a soggy English summer, but it was one we embraced gamely.

Oh fuck yes, we did.

It was a conversation of two halves, a couple of lovely word crosses, a beautiful chance to clinch it in the third minute…but it wasn’t to be. We done our best, and TV was the winner at the end of the day.

I’ll be back to my normal blogs from here on, but I leave you meanwhile with possibly the worst photograph ever taken of a gig. I blame the cocktail of cocktails consumed earlier in the evening at Ladygeek’s Remarkable Women event. Somewhere in this blurred mess of coloured lights and people who dress far ooh-la-la-ish than I do is the band Maverick Sabre, playing to the adoring, glistening crowd at the St Pancras Hotel in London for their first (of many, we hope) RLifeLive events.

Photojournalists, you may start quaking in your rock-star boots now. This is PHOTO GOLD, I think you’ll agree.

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One thought on “Massive word-barf.”

Thank you for the laugh. Is being called ginger mean? I have been called it many times. Must remember to take offence. I thought that people were just helpful and pointing it out, in case I hadn’t noticed 🙂